21 



brow of the abyss when, as if by some convulsion 

 of nature, medicine was overwhelmed for fifteen 

 centuries. To the philosophy of medicine, Galen 

 had given more than enough ; to its natural history 

 he had contributed in the following of Hippocrates ; 

 to its discoveries he had given the greatest of all 

 means of research, individual genius ; to its methods 

 he had given, but in vain, that indispensable method, 

 practised first perhaps in history by Archimedes 

 and the Alexandrians, of verification by experiment; 

 a method, after Galen, virtually lost till the time of 

 Gilbert, of Galileo and of Harvey. 



In the growth of human societies small civilisa- 

 tions, however exquisite, have been sacrificed to 

 the formation of vaster and vaster congregations 

 of men ; thus only, it would seem, is an equi- 

 librium to be reached of sufficient stability for the 

 highest ends of mankind. Greece, beautiful as was 

 her bloom, penetrating as was her spirit, perhaps 

 because of her very freedom of thought, never 

 became a nation ; her city states were too wilful 

 to combine. The Macedonian power broadened 

 the foundation of polity eastward and westward ; 

 and this work was carried as far perhaps as sword 

 and fasces could carry it by the power of Rome. 



